Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Every year, you dream about putting out fresh, homemade
biscuits on the holiday table; but fear of failure, and the convenience of
those popping fresh tubes, makes it nothing more than an annual fantasy. Then, you
found out about these cream biscuits.

Instead of cutting butter into the flour, we’re using
butterfat-laced heavy cream, which not only makes the recipe fast and
easy, but also produces a biscuit that’s light, moist, and flaky. To that end,
try and get some self-rising flour. You can make your own (see below), but for
whatever reason, the pre-mixed stuff seems to work better.

As far as cutting goes, I don’t like to roll the dough too
thin just to get more cuts. I do it about 5/8-inch thick, cut six nice biscuits,
and then use the trimmings to get 4 or 5 more. You can get 12, but that depends
on the exact size of your cutter. The nice thing about this dough is that
re-rolling doesn’t seem to damage the texture.

If you do decide to raise your biscuit game this holiday
season, maybe think about adding some chopped rosemary or sage to the melted
butter. That would add some extra aromatic savoriness, not to mention make your
kitchen smell really good. I hope you give these easy cream biscuits a try soon.
Enjoy!

Ingredients for 10-12 Cream Biscuits:

2 cups self-rising flour (You can make you own by sifting
together 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 tablespoon baking powder, and 1
teaspoon fine salt)

You're just a shill for the man, man. Biscuits are round because the man says so. Join the rectangular biscuit revolution and kiss scrap gathering goodbye!Also, you can get some awesome crispy corners that way.PS great recipe, can't wait to give it a shot!

Please, I'm dealing with a rebellious oven that doesn't want to tell me how much he's going to get heated.I WANT TO BAKE SO MANY THINGS I JUST CAN'T BARE MYSELF. my oven sucks so thats something I also have to bare with. Damn those non working centigrades mediators.

Sometimes I like reading the comments as much as watching the video. I just wish there was a "like" and "dislike" button for the comments. And an occasional "WTF" wouldn't hurt either. Thanks Chef! Another great recipe. You're helping me become a better cook and I appreciate it!

Dear Chef JohnWhy the aluminium foil? What happened to your silicon baking mat? Is it a sad story? If you have given up on it, please tell because I am thinking of buying one but I've put it off as they are so expensive. At least they are in Canada - my default country of shopping because I live here -- and everything, everything, everything is more expensive in Canada. So, if they are pricey and still worth it, share the information with the world, especially the NonAmerican parts, which are disgustingly expensive (Note: 2 references to Canada concerning cream biscuits. Why is that?)

I love a good biscuit but avoid making them like the plague (and pie crust) because I HATE cutting in the fat! This recipe sounds like my kind o' biscuit. If I use the convection-bake setting on my oven should I reduce that 500* temp a bit or is that high temp necessary for the rise?

So John, could we have a bit of practising what you preach? A few posts back you were telling us how cups weren't an accurate way of measuring flour and pro recipes would always provide weights. But it's rare for any of the recipes here to give weights for flour or sugar and sometimes even butter gets doled out by the tablespoon. This is particularly annoying for us peeps in the UK where a cup is something we drink tea from. Conversion tables are around but there's obviously a degree of imprecision here.

So how about when you do a recipe you get out that digital scale of yours, weigh the ingredients as you go and provide the weight alongside the volume measurements? Don't mind if you use your olde worlde imperial measurements, so cute, as that's an easy enough conversion. In fact I'm pretty sure my scales have a button on them labelled 'Go back 40 years' that will switch it into ounces!

Hey Chef John, I'm a beginner at baking. I want to double or maybe even triple this recipe to make more biscuits (I've got a lot coming for Thanksgiving), but I've read that you have to be careful when increasing the amount of ingredients in a baking recipe. How can I do so without ruining my biscuits?

I have made these biscuits with the maple walnut glaze and my family loved both, I did not put rosemary on the biscuits, but put that along with other herbs upon the turkey,so my kitchen smelled wonderful anyway!

Tried this recipe for Thanksgiving. They were fantastic. Tender, flaky, buttery,savory, melt in your moth delicious. Super easy to make and the dough is really easy to work with. Will be using this recipe for biscuits from now on.

Sorry if this is a repeat, but I had a sign-I'm issue!What do you think about adding some buttermilk powder to this? These are the only biscuits I make these days, but I do kind of miss buttermilk biscuits.

Chef John- Perhaps I'm the only one that messed this up, but my biscuits were burnt on the bottom. I only baked for 9 minutes and when the tops were golden I removed them from the oven. Not sure what I did wrong.

Great biscuits! They will now be my 'go-to' biscuit recipe for now on! I didn't have have the self-rising flour but used your substitution. One note, mine would have burned if I didn't keep a close eye on them. Beautiful on top, but a tad too brown on bottoms. Will try at 475* next time to see how they turn out. Delicious, delicious, delicious!

Chef John, you have rocked my world! I thought I had the world's greatest biscuit recipe. They brought raves from everyone who tried them (especially with my hot sausage gravy), but I humbly remove my crown and toss it at your feet! Well done!

Did a little experiment with these. I cut the recipe in half,added a tablespoon of buttermilk powder, half a cup of cheddar cheese and some garlic powder. What I came up with a fluffy light biscuit that tastes very close to the famous Red lobster biscuits.I didn't bother with cutting, just dropped them by spoonful on a baking sheet. FANTASTIC!

Check this out. I'm living with my aunt and uncle and their oven stopped working, and as my uncle has not fixed it or junked it yet, I went out and bought a toaster oven. I've made everything, but toast in this thing. It's amazing! And I've have recently enlisted this brave little toaster oven to make your cream biscuits. They turned out great. Although I did have to change the recipe a little because while I was in the store I forgot what type of cream you said to use. So I ended up using sour cream and milk. Next time, I'll follow your recipe correctly and I bet they'll turn out even better. Thank you for this and all the other videos I've watched that have turned me into a woman who can throw down in the kitchen.

I have made several of your recioes just delicious but this one didn't turn out too well. I was out of self raising so I made my own as per your instructions. I was 54ml short of thickened cream but the dough turned out fine. At 500 which is 260 degrees for me but my oven only goes up to 250 anyhow they were completely burnt by 7 minutes and were still dough inside. I left them in at 175 for a further 10 minutes to see when the insides would cook. In my opinion they were a tad salty. I will give this a try again later on with self raising flour, any suggestions?

The extra liquid would help, as a dried dough burns faster. Also, is your pan too thin? Cheaper baking sheets will also encourage burning, so you want a nice thick pan. Also, instead of foil use a silpat baking mat instead. Good luck!

Ohh they are sooo yummy! Just made them and enjoy it right now! We don't have self-raising flour in germany so I mixed it together and they went out perfectly!! Delicous and fluffy :) thank you chef john! I love your videos! Keep it up! Greetings from germany!

I live by myself, so I calculated 1/6 of the recipe, which would come out to about 2 biscuits. To that I added 2 T of shredded cheese and a sprinkle of oregano, rolled it out, and wrapped it around a hot dog. I baked it in my toaster oven, and it was fantastic! I didn't have cream, so I used a combination of melted butter and milk, and it worked just fine. Now I know I can make just 2 biscuits if I want!

Can we pre-cut and refrigerate before baking if being made same day? I want to make this with your Southern fried chicken, Southern green bean, and mashed potato recipes in the same meal. I'm trying to see what I can prep in advance.

Hi! Love all your recipes and the vids I have watched. Am writing a series of cute food tales for NaNoWriMo this year and will be using this little fabster for the biscuits my character is served in the cafe. xxoo! Thank you, and if the book ever gets published -- will credit you!

This method is a big hit with me! I was finally able to make biscuits that my husband liked and didn't refer to as hockey pucks!! So easy and quick and delicious. I even rendered my own lard at one time thinking that that was the secret to biscuits ( no it isn't). My dough was a bit wet but I'll know what to do next time (add a little more flour). Thank you Chef John, from the bottom of my southern heart.

I know this post is old news in internet time, and you'll probably never see this comment, but I loved this recipe! It went very well with the raw honey from my friend's bees!

After making the recipe the first time to your exact instructions (using "homemade" self-rising flour), I then decided to make it again with one cup cake flour and one cup all-purpose flours to lower the protein. The fluffyness (that's a word, right?) doubled and added to the biscuits ability to create layers. they were amazing in my opinion, but I love fluffy biscuits.

I made the biscuits with the sour cream. They were soft, flaky and delicious. The only problem, they had a definite odor, so my husband refused to eat them. The sour cream was good according to the date. Are they supposed to smell? Thanks for the recipe and your answer.